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8 2020 04 03!09 06 17 PM

The document discusses number in English and Arabic. In English, there are two numbers: singular and plural. Nouns can be variable (having both forms) or invariable (only one form). Variable nouns are further divided into regular and irregular plurals. In Arabic, there are three numbers: singular, dual, and plural. Nouns can be variable or invariable. Variable nouns have regular and irregular plural forms. Number agreement between nouns, verbs, and adjectives is more complex in Arabic than in English.

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عباس محمد عبد العباس
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39 views

8 2020 04 03!09 06 17 PM

The document discusses number in English and Arabic. In English, there are two numbers: singular and plural. Nouns can be variable (having both forms) or invariable (only one form). Variable nouns are further divided into regular and irregular plurals. In Arabic, there are three numbers: singular, dual, and plural. Nouns can be variable or invariable. Variable nouns have regular and irregular plural forms. Number agreement between nouns, verbs, and adjectives is more complex in Arabic than in English.

Uploaded by

عباس محمد عبد العباس
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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The realization of the category of Number in English and Arabic

The system of number in English comprises two terms: singular and plural.
Singular denotes one, plural more than one. With regard to these two numbers,
nouns may be classified into two main groups : variable and invariable. Variable
nouns have number contrast ,i.e., they have a singular and a plural form: book –
books , knife –knives. Invariable nouns have no number contrast ; they are
either singular : news- gold- music , or plural : scissors- cattle- the poor. Variable
nouns are classified into regular plural nouns and irregular plural nouns. The
former are predictable in that they take ‘s’ , the latter are not predictable.

1- Invariable Nouns

Invariable nouns are either singular or plural.Singular invariable nouns are:

i-abstract mass nouns : music , courage , freedom

ii-concrete mass noun: gold, iron, sugar

iii-singular nouns ending in ‘s’: news, linguistics , physics

iv-proper nouns: Baghdad , Paris , Ali

v-non-personal adjective heads:the good , the bad , the evil

Invariable plural nouns are:

i-summation plural : trousers, scissors: belows

ii-other plural nouns ending in ‘s’: contents, goods, annals

iii-certain proper nouns: The Midlands, The Netherlands, The Highlands

iv-unmarked plural nouns: cattle, police , vermin

v-personal adjective heads: the rich, the poor, the sick

2- Variable Nouns

Variable nouns have both singular and plural forms. Their plurals are divided
into regular and irregular. Regular plurals are predictable ;they are formed by
adding ‘s’/’es’ to the singular form: college –colleges, fox—foxes. Irregular
plurals are not predictable:

i-voicing +s : knife—knives

ii-mutation by changing the medial vowel: man—men

iii- plural ending in ‘en’: child—children

1
iv-zero plural: sheep—sheep

v-foreign plural: basis---bases , criterion---criteria

There are three numbers in Arabic: singular, dual, and plural. There are nouns
which are invariably found in the plural form ‫ناس‬, and others which ae always
used in the singular ‫شجاعة‬. There are also nouns which are used in dual, due to
idiomatic aspects as in‫الكريمتان‬، ، ,,‫الرافدان اإليرادان‬and ‫األصغران‬.Variable nouns can be
classified into regular and irregular. Regular forms include all dual nouns except
those mentioned above. They are either masculine or feminine.

Irregular plurals of trilateral verbs ‫ االسماء الثالثية‬have more than twenty nine
forms to be learned from the dictionary‫ و‬, like ‫اب‬UU‫ ثي‬: ‫وب‬UU‫ ث‬:‫فن‬UU‫س‬...‫فينة‬UU‫ س‬: ‫ امم‬:‫ة‬UU‫ام‬
.Whereas quadrilateral verbs or more ‫ثر‬UU‫ االسماء الرباعية او اك‬have two or three
forms , like ‫ير‬U‫جمع التكس‬..‫اتيذ‬U‫ اس‬/‫ شياطين و استاذ‬/‫ شيطان‬، ‫كواكب‬/‫ كوكب‬is subdivided into
plurals of paucity ‫ جمع القلة‬and plurals of abundance ‫ جمع الكثرة‬.The former is used
from three to ten , the latter for more than ten.

The dual number is predictable in Arabic. It is formed by adding ‫ االلف و النون‬to


the singular form in the subjective nominative case and ‫ون‬UU‫اء و الن‬UU‫ الي‬in the
objective accusative case : ‫ قلمين‬: ‫ قلمان‬: ‫قلم‬.

Regular plurals are also predictable, related to gender. They are either ‫جمع المذكر‬
‫ السالم‬by adding ‫ الواو و النون‬or ‫ معلمين‬:‫ون‬UU‫معلم‬:‫ معلم‬: ‫ون‬UU‫اء و الن‬UU‫ الي‬. Or they are ‫جمع‬
‫ المؤنث السالم‬by adding ‫ معلمات‬:‫ معلمة‬: ‫االلف والتاء‬

In English, there is number agreement between the subject and the verb. On the
contrary , the number agreement in Arabic is very complicated since nouns ,
verbs ,adjectives adverbs can be in plural on the one hand , and it is based on
whether the sentence is nominal or verbal ,on the other:

- ‫ االوالد‬/ ‫ الولدان‬/‫ذهب الولد‬


- ‫ الود ذهب‬/‫ الولدان ذهبا‬/ ‫االوالد ذهبوا‬

‫ الولد الطويل‬/‫الفتاة الطويلة‬

The last point to be stated here is related to the possibility of having more than one plural
form for a singular noun, of course with a semantic difference:

‫ بحور‬:‫ بحار‬:‫بحر‬

‫ شواهد‬:‫ شهود‬:‫شاهد‬

‫ ابيات‬:‫ بيوت‬:‫بيت‬

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